


Routines

by silentdescant



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Best Friends, Domestic, Gen, Hotels, Platonic Relationships, Pre-Slash, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 15:11:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3451802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentdescant/pseuds/silentdescant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first thing Dan does when he enters a hotel room is this: run to the window and admire the view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Routines

**Author's Note:**

> This can be read as pre-slash or just gen close friendship fic. This fandom is very dear to my heart, so I'm glad I've managed to write _something_. :)

The first thing Dan does when he enters a hotel room is this: run to the window and admire the view. Phil's been in some pretty terrible hotel rooms with Dan, but Dan's first instinct is always--somewhat surprisingly--to be optimistic and enthusiastic. He hides that side of himself, a lot of the time, so Phil sees it as a privilege that he gets to experience Dan's unfiltered reactions.

"Hey, Phil, check this out," he says, pressing his forehead to the window. "We can see the pool from here. We can totally spy on people."

Phil dumps his suitcase and backpack and joins him. Beyond the view of the pool is a view of the parking lot, and then a view of the petrol station at the corner. On the opposite side of the street is another row of buildings, one of them a hotel, so they can't even see the horizon from this height. "We could go swimming later, if you like," Phil offers.

"I didn't bring my trunks," Dan replies, his voice only barely betraying his wistfulness. Phil only brought one pair, or he would offer to share his clothes. Maybe they could buy a pair in a gift shop or convenience store or something.

Now that the window ritual is complete, Dan moves on to bed-choosing. Phil doesn't care about which bed he has, though he usually likes to be a bit colder than Dan and often ends up by the window and air conditioning unit, so he lets Dan choose. Whether Dan takes Phil's temperature preference--or his own--into account remains a mystery, because his process is this: throw his gear onto one bed, testing the bounciness, then sit on the other, testing its bounciness, and then take out his laptop and arrange his electronics on his chosen bed. It's by all accounts a very scientific procedure.

Dan, for reasons unknown, chooses the bed by the window this time, so Phil takes the other. There's hardly any room between them, so it doesn't really matter anyway. As Dan kicks off his shoes and logs into the hotel's sluggish wifi--because the wifi is always slow, no matter what speed is promised by the hotel's website or adverts--Phil begins setting up the room to his satisfaction.

Though he doesn't care about which bed he ends up in, Phil is a creature of habit when it comes to his toiletries. He sets out his toothbrush and toothpaste and antiperspirant and hair straighteners in the bathroom exactly as he has them arranged at home. He pays special attention to his contact lenses and the cleaning fluid. It's practicality, really, because when he's half-blind and not fully awake in the morning, it's better not to be fumbling around through a mess of his and Dan's products.

"Hey, Dan?" he calls from the bathroom. "Do you want to go out to eat or just order room service?" He pokes his head out to see Dan reclining in his usual browsing position, laptop perched high on his stomach.

"We can eat here, if you want," Dan replies. Sometimes he takes Phil's simple questions as a statement of his preferences, even when Phil doesn't mean to influence his choice.

"I'm a little bit jet-lagged," Phil says. "I think I'll take a shower, then."

"Do you want me to order for you?"

"Pancakes," Phil replies with a decisive nod. He doesn't actually remember if the hotel serves breakfast all day, but if they don't, Dan will order him something he likes. He's very good at remembering Phil's food preferences.

Phil retreats back into the bathroom and takes a leisurely shower, enjoying the hard water pressure as it pounds against his back. It's like a built-in back massager. He wonders idly if there are showers that are specifically designed for that purpose, like those pressurized jets in jacuzzi tubs, and he's about to shout a question for Dan when he hears the muffled sound of voices through the beat of the water. The bathroom door is cracked open, holding in the warmth but not all of the steam, so he can make out the clanking of metal food service trays above the shower noise.

Dan pops his head into the bathroom along with a rush of cold air and says, "Food's here. Are you drowning?"

"No!"

"Are you wanking?"

" _No_! The water pressure's just really good!" Phil cries, defensive and a little scandalized. He wouldn't do that, not with the door open.

"Save some for me, then. And come out before your food gets cold."

Phil rinses out his hair one last time, just to be sure there's no shampoo suds left, and steps out of the tub, quickly wrapping a towel around his waist. Dan left the door more open than he should've, and most of the heat has escaped, so Phil doesn't linger. He hurries to his suitcase and digs around for his coziest flannel pajama bottoms and a fresh t-shirt.

Dan is on his bed, half naked and already eating. He doesn't wear much to sleep in, just his underwear and sometimes a pair of sweatpants if it's exceptionally cold, which Phil finds very strange. Dan's wearing sweatpants now, but it's not cold in this hotel room, so he'll probably take them off after dinner. Phil appreciates this, because it is a bit weird when Dan just hangs around in his pants and nothing else.

He finds a plate of pancakes waiting for him on the tray, along with little dishes of tasty things to put on top like strawberries, whipped cream, chocolate chips, and of course, syrup.

"I asked for the chocolate chips 'specially," Dan tells him.

There's far too much food for Phil to conceivably eat right now, but that's just American portion sizes coming into play. He'll probably end up sharing his chocolate chip pancakes with Dan, as dessert. "Did you find us something to watch?" he asks.

"I looked at the TV guide but there's just cooking shows. I've got the latest episode of Breaking Bad, though. Have you seen it yet?"

At the shake of Phil's head, Dan grabs his laptop and plate--a chicken salad, which is both typical for Dan and unusual for the room service situation--and joins Phil on his bed. They sit side by side against the headboard with the laptop resting between their outstretched legs, and Dan opens up the file and starts it playing.

He wants the light off, "for full immersion, Phil, come on," but Phil refuses. Not while they're eating dinner. Once they finish, however--each of them having eaten far too much, with Dan sharing the last of the pancakes--Phil puts their plates on the bedside table and clicks off the light. They've slouched down against the pillows, settling into more comfortable positions, and Dan burrows under the covers after a while.

Dan starts playing another video, a movie, but by this time, Phil is almost asleep sitting up. "I need to take my contacts out," he mutters without any urgency, and Dan grunts a noise of acknowledgement. He pauses the movie while Phil goes into the bathroom to take his lenses out, and when Phil returns, he notices Dan's grey sweatpants strewn across the floor at the foot of the bed.

"Settling in, are you?"

"I'm too hot," Dan replies, which is sort of ridiculous, because he's the one bundled under two blankets and a sheet. Whatever.

Phil joins him again and this time lies down fully on his side, curled such that he can still see Dan's laptop. Dan mirrors him, so that they make a little half-circle in the laptop's flickering glow. It's a little uncomfortable for Phil, with his glasses digging into the side of his face where they're pressed against the pillow, but he feels himself drifting to sleep, and he moves in his sleep anyway.

Indeed, he wakes up some time later to find his glasses nowhere to be found and Dan still beside him in his bed, now in his nighttime browsing position, which involves lying flat with only his head tilted up and his laptop practically shoved under his chin, it's so close to his face. Phil is pretty sure this is so that the light doesn't bother anyone else in the room--Phil--but it can't be good for his eyes. He blinks up at Dan's blurry, glowing face for a while, listening to the soft slide of Dan's fingers against the track pad and the occasional tap of the mouse buttons, and Dan is completely unaware. He's not even wearing his headphones, at least, not that Phil can tell, and it's not often he's so totally oblivious to his surroundings. Phil is almost tempted to grab him and scare him. But he's also still incredibly tired from all the traveling, and disturbing the quiet of the room wouldn't be worth the fun of seeing Dan jump, and Phil's not much of a prankster anyway. So he closes his eyes again and lets the sound of Dan scrolling through his tumblr dashboard lull him back to sleep.

Phil wakes up first the next morning, of course--who knows how late Dan stayed up browsing the internet--and he reaches for the bedside table, feeling around in his bleary, half-awake state for his glasses. They're right where they should be, next to his plugged in phone and the hotel alarm clock. Dan must've put them there after Phil fell asleep last night.

He's unsurprised to see Dan asleep beside him, drooling on Phil's extra pillow with the blankets pulled up to his ears. There's still distance between their bodies--except for Dan's cold, bare feet brushed up against Phil's ankles where his socks have slouched down--but the mere fact of Dan sharing a bed with him means that Phil is excessively warm and a little uncomfortable for it. He wonders if that's what woke him, because it's rather early in the morning.

Dan's laptop is closed and resting at the end of the bed, in danger of being kicked off by Phil's notoriously flailing feet, so Phil moves it safely out of the way by putting it on Dan's unused bed and retrieves his own laptop from his backpack. He and Dan are like a married couple with their routines, he thinks as he settles back into his warm spot on the bed. He's sitting up now, so it's not as stifling under the covers. It's his turn to browse the internet and catch up on emails while Dan sleeps. They've got this down to a science, really, with each of them managing their solitary internet time while never actually being alone. That's just the way Phil likes it, if he's honest.

As time ticks on, Phil starts glancing over at Dan's sleeping, drooling face. He must've stayed up until the wee hours of the morning if he's still sleeping so soundly. Dan sleeps like the dead, hardly moving once he's found his comfortable position. At least, most nights. He's never shared a bed with Dan during his bouts of insomnia or his vivid nightmares, but he's definitely heard those occasions through their shared wall in the flat. Those nights don't happen often, which is good because they're usually disruptive enough to wake Phil from his much lighter sleep.

Eventually, Dan snuffles and burrows even deeper into the warmth of the blankets, wiggling his way closer until he's pressed against Phil's legs, his face squished against Phil's hip. "Dan," Phil says disapprovingly. He keeps his voice soft, in case Dan isn't actually ready to wake up, but Dan groans expressively and wraps his arm around Phil's knees.

"Did you stay up too late?" Phil asks.

Dan groans again. "What time's it?"

"Getting late," Phil replies. "We don't have anything to do today, though. Just get used to the time difference."

"So I can go back to sleep?" Dan asks. His voice sounds clearer, more awake, even muffled as it is against Phil's hip.

Phil sighs. "Do you really want to waste the entire day, Dan? And don't say yes, because I know you don't actually want that."

Dan echoes Phil's sigh and rolls onto his back, flopping his limbs spread-eagled as much as he can on the small, shared bed. His eyes are still closed, but he's definitely waking up now. Phil can see it in the way he's licking his lips and swallowing. There's still a spot of dried spit on his cheek; he'll scratch at it soon, trying to rub it off his skin. Phil wonders if it's maybe a little odd that he knows all of Dan's habits in this much detail.

"Is there anything happening on the internet?" Dan asks.

"Depends on when you went to sleep," Phil replies. "Not much this morning, if I'm honest."

"Then I can just lie here for a while." He cracks his eyes open and angles his head toward Phil. "Sorry for stealing your bed, by the way."

Phil shrugs. "Not the first time," he says, because it really isn't. They've shared a bed on random occasions like this since the first time Dan visited Phil at his house in Manchester. "You did drool all over my extra pillow, though."

It's absolutely worth the jab to see Dan's face wrinkle and twist with disgust. He immediately reaches up to scrub at his cheek with his palm, making a noise that matches his expression. "Well, I'm awake now," he grumbles. "Thanks a lot, Phil."

"You're welcome," Phil replies magnanimously. "You know, I was thinking all morning about when you would wake up and notice your face is all gross and sticky."

" _Phil_ ," Dan groans in the way that makes Phil mentally replay what he's just said, looking for unintentional innuendos. He finds it, but this morning, he doesn't care. The joke is kind of a stretch, anyway.

"I know all your disgusting habits," he adds.

"I can never live with anyone else, ever again," Dan replies, deadpan. He fixes Phil with a stare that's surprisingly intense for so early in the morning. At least, for early for Dan. "No one else can know, Phil. You must take these secrets to your grave."

Phil grins, glad of the permanence Dan's joke implies because he can hear the truth in it, then schools his face into the serious expression this situation seems to warrant. "So I shall."

 

 _fin_.


End file.
